General Leclerc's aviation accident

General Leclerc's aviation accident (Accident de l'avion du général Leclerc) took place on November 28, 1947 near the city of Colomb-Béchar in the western Sahara, then in French Algeria.

A B-25 Mitchell medium bomber operated by the French Air Force, named Tailly II and converted into an official aircraft for General Leclerc, crashed around noon near the Mediterranean–Niger Railway, about 50 km north of Colomb-Béchar Airport, which it was attempting to reach. The four crew members and eight passengers, including Leclerc, were killed instantly. A 13th unidentified body was found in the wreckage, leading to controversy regarding the causes of the accident.

Sequence of events

Having departed on November 26, 1947 from Villacoublay, in the Paris suburbs, for an inspection tour in North Africa, General Leclerc spent the afternoon of the 26th and the day of the 27th in the Arzew–La Macta region on the coast, east of Oran, to attend an interservice maneuver.

This troop movement took place in an area where potential future oil fields had just been identified by the geologist explorer Conrad Kilian, sites of strategic value for France in a world where the United States and the United Kingdom still held a near-monopoly on oil reserves.

On the morning of 28 November, General Leclerc attended a military ceremony in Arzew, then headed to La Sénia Aerodrome, where his personal aircraft, a B-25 Mitchell named Tailly II, awaited him. This aircraft, originally a twin-engine medium bomber, had been converted for the transport of military authorities. It included a small office and berths. The aircraft was to take him to Colomb-Béchar, a town located 200 km south of Oran, near the border with Morocco, where he was to spend the day. The weather was bad, with the morning bulletin stating that "the Oran-Colomb-Béchar route was on the southeastern edge of a major disturbance [...]. A general worsening was expected from the west with the formation of numerous sandstorms."

The pilot hesitated but knew that General Leclerc hated delays. The plane eventually took off at 10:15, and it had enough fuel to turn back if the weather prevented it from landing at Colomb-Béchar. However, another pilot, who was supposed to make the same route on an AAC.1 Toucan, canceled the flight due to the weather. The plane was expected to arrive one and a half hours later, at 11:45. After fifteen minutes of flight, the radio operator asked Béchar for an update on the weather conditions and received a Morse code response: "Light intermittent rain, visibility six to ten kilometers. Ceiling: 10/10 at 500 meters, summits obscured. Wind: southern sector, 50 to 60 km/h with gusts". These conditions were not good but still acceptable. The plane was flying at 8,000 feet, facing a headwind likely at 100 km/h.

At 11:34, the Béchar airport sent its radio direction finding (gonio) position, but this type of position was considered unreliable by pilots at the time. A dozen minutes later, the plane flew over the Bon-Arfa station, and the crew spotted the railway line. The pilot, Lieutenant François Delluc, decided to lower the plane to a low altitude and follow the Mediterranean–Niger Railway, leading to Colomb-Béchar (this line connected Colomb-Béchar to Oujda in Morocco, near the Mediterranean). Witnesses saw it pass, about 20 m above the ground, at an estimated speed of 250 kph. At this point, the railway line crossed a large desert plateau.

The landing time was postponed twice by a quarter of an hour by the crew. The last message from the B-25 stated: Tout va bien à bord, sommes à dix minutes du terrain. (English: All is well on board, we are ten minutes from the airfield). At that moment, the railway line they were following left the desert plateau and entered the hills. The plane likely attempted to regain altitude.

An hour later, as rumors of an accident began to spread in Colomb-Béchar, a column of the 1st Saharan company of the Legion led by Lieutenant-Colonel Dudezert set out northward, following the railway line. When they arrived, they found the wreckage of the bomber scattered on either side of the embankment of the railway over several dozen meters (yards). The plane appeared to have struck the embankment. The rear of the aircraft was to the left of the tracks, with the engines about 40 m further on the right. Kerosene was spilled on the ground and still burning, as were the scattered body parts.